Hamid Karzai endorses Narendra Modi on his Baluchistan remarks

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Afghanistan’s former President Hamid Karzai “appreciated” Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement on the human rights situation in Balochistan on Friday, saying that India had every right to respond to Pakistan’s provocations.

Speaking to an all-party meeting on Kashmir last week, and in his address on independence day, Mr. Modi had vowed to take up the cause of Baloch people facing repression in Pakistan on the international stage, and said he had received many messages from them.

“In Balochistan there is extreme suffering at the hands of extremists promoted by state structures in Pakistan. Therefore the people’s concerns need to be addressed and aired,” Mr. Karzai told The Hindu in an interview, saying that Mr. Modi’s comments should make Pakistan’s government “see the gravity of the situation”.

Mr. Karzai also blamed the United States for supporting Pakistan in the past, and claimed that it was the US that had stopped India from providing military assistance and lethal weaponry to Afghanistan during his Presidential tenure that ended in 2014.

Referring to a statement by visiting NATO and US commander General John Nicholson in Delhi last week, who had said that America welcomes Indian support to Afghanistan, Mr. Karzai said that the US had shifted its position “late and only lately”.

“It is welcome that the US wishes to allow and encourage India to help Afghanistan militarily, although India should never have waited for anyone’s permission,” Mr. Karzai said.

The comments are significant as they come a week ahead of a visit to Delhi by Afghan Army Chief General Qadam Shah Shahim. As The Hindu had reported earlier, sources confirmed that General Shah will bring a “revised wish list” of military hardware Afghanistan wants India to help supply, including requests for more Mi-25 and Mi-35 helicopters.

Mr. Karzai said that India must now take “bold steps” to enhance Afghan defence capabilities. “India knows the state of the Afghan forces. India is very capable of helping Afghanistan and has the means to supply Afghanistans needs: equipment hardware and training,” he said at a roundtable organised by the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS) ahead of a keynote address on “Regional Power play and the rise of radicalism in Afghanistan” which he will deliver on Saturday.